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一、Explain-the-fllowing-terms

1． Contrastive analysis

【答案】 Contrastive analysis is an approach to analysis of second language acquisition, based on a belief that a more effective teaching pedagogy would come out when the similarities and differences between native language and target language are taken into consideration. By such an analysis , it is supposed that some leaning difficulties could be predicted in terms of language transfer.

2． Lexical word

【答案】 Lexical word, lexical words are also called content words, referring to those which have lexical meanings, that is, those which refer to substance, action and quality, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives , and adverbs.

3． phoneme

Phoneme is a basic unit of phonological study, and it is an abstract collection of phonetic 【答案】

features which can distinguish meaning. For example, in English, is described as a phoneme.

4． division of pragmatic labor

【答案】 Horn observes that the Q-based and R-based principles often directly collide and suggests the resolution comes from a division of pragmatic labor，wh ich reads “The use of a marked （relatively complex and/or prolix） expression when a corresponding unmarked （simpler ，less “effortful”）alternate expression is available tends to be interpreted as conveying a marked message （one which the unmarked alternative would not or could not have conveyed） .

5． Contextual meaning

【答案】 It is also called speaker’s meaning, or utterance meaning, which is more closely related to the context. For example, when a person says “My bag is heavy”，what he actually means may be asking the hearer to help him carry the bag.

二、Short-answer-questions

6． Linguists have taken an internal and/or external focus to the study of language acquisition. What is the difference between the two?

【答案】 The difference between internal and/or external focus to the study of language acquisition.

（1） The internal focus seeks to account for speakers9 internalized , underlying knowledge of language. The

external focus emphasizes language use, including the functions of language which are realized in learners production at different stages of development.

（2）According to the above difference, the linguist Noam Chomsky claims that human beings are biologically programmed for language and that the language develops in the child just as other biological functions such as walking. Originally Chomsky referred to this innate ability as Language Acquisition Device ，also known as LAD. Later Chomsky prefers this innate endowment as Universal Grammar （UG ） and holds that if children are pre-equipped with UG, then what they have to learn is the ways in which their own language makes use of these principles and the variations on those principles which may exist in the particular language they are learning.

The interaetionist view holds that language develops as a result of the complex interplay between the human characteristics of the child and the environment in which the child develops. Integrated with the innatist view, the interaetionist further claims that the modified language which is suitable for the child’s capability is crucial in his language acquisition.

7． Whafs your understanding of language?

【答案】 Language is a system of vocal symbols used for human communication. Language must be a system, since elements in it are arranged according to certain rules, they cannot be combined at will. Language is arbitrary in the sense that there is no logic connection between the word and the thing it refers to. Language has symbolic nature : words are associated with objects , actions , ideas by convention. For all languages, the primary medium is sound, no matter how well developed are their writing system. Language is human-specific, it is very different from the communication system other forms of life possess.

8． What is move-α rule?

【答案】 Move-α rule is a general movement rule accounting for the syntactic behavior of any constituent movement. It goes like this: any element may be moved to another place, or more generally changed in some way, as long as the relevant conditions （principles ） are satisfied. That is to say, the movements are constrained by the other modules of grammar in order to rule out ungrammatical forms, such as the kissed boy girl and were kissed the girl by the boy. It is the interaction of move-α with other syntactic principles that results in grammatical strings. It is responsible for the mapping between active and passive.

9． What is the relationship between linguistics and behaviorism according to Bloomfield?

【答案】 For Bloomfield, linguistics is a branch of the positivistic brand of psychology known as “behaviourism”. When the behaviourist methodology entered linguistics via Bloomfield, s writings, the popular practice in linguistic studies was to accept what a native speaker says in his language and to discard what he says about it. This is because of the belief that a linguistic description was reliable when based on observation of unstudied utterances by speakers; it was unreliable if the analyst had resorted to asking speakers questions such as “Can you say ... in your language?”

10．How would you describe the oddness of the following sentences, using semantic features?

（a ）The television drank my water.

（b ）His dog writes poetry.

【答案】（a ） The verb drink represents a behavior of the animate beings, therefore, it is required

that the subject of this verb should have a semantic feature as （+ANIMATE） , however, the word television , which is in position of subject, has an opposite feature:（-ANIMATE ） . That’s why such a collocation results in oddness.

（b ） The action of writing poetry is normally one which only human beings could do, therefore, the subject is required to have a semantic feature as （+HUMAN） ; however, the word dog in the subject position is featured as （-HUMAN ） . Therefore, the sentence is odd.

三、Essay-question

11．The British linguist F.R. Palmer argues that 44there is no absolute distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms. ” Do you believe so? Support your view with examples.

【答案】 I would prefer not to agree with this argument that there is no absolute distinction between gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms. The common way to distinguish gradable antonyms and complementary antonyms could be to see the forms they could occur: adjective gradable antonyms could be modified by “very”，and could have comparative forms and superlative forms; while the complementary counterparts could not. For example, we could say “very warm”, “warmer”, but we could not say “very absent ” or “more absent ” （absent here is opposed to present）.

The expressio ns with “very” or “more” modifying complementary antonyms are in fact not true comparatives and have a clear indication of either this one or the other one in the pair of complementary antonyms. For example, expression like “He is more dead than alive” actually means “It is more correct to say that he is dead than to say he is alive”. And this sentence could only be used when he is still alive; after all, we do not say someone is more dead than other.

12．What are the unique features of Halliday’s systemic linguistics?

【答案】 Halliday’s Systemic Grammar is different from other linguistic theories in the following aspects. First, it attaches great importance to the sociological aspects of language.

Secondly , it views language as a form of doing rather than a form of knowing. It distinguishes linguistic behavior potential from actual linguistic behavior.

Thirdly , it gives a relatively high priority to description of the characteristics of particular languages and particular varieties of languages.

Fourthly , it explains a number of aspects of language in terms of dines （i.e. ungrammatical —>more unusual —> less unusual—>less usual —> grammatical）.

Fifthly , it seeks verification of its hypotheses by means of observation from texts and by means of statistical techniques.

Lastly , it has as its central category the category of the system.

13．Please list and explain the 7 types of meaning recognized by G. Leech.

【答案】 The seven types of meaning were first postulated by G. Leech. They are respectively illustrated as follows:

（1）Conceptual meaning, which refers to logical, cognitive, or denotative content. This type of meaning is “denotative” in that it is concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it denotes , or refers to.